explanation

An explanation is a statement about how or why something is the way it is. If you're failing math, you'd better come up with a good explanation to give to your parents.

Explanation is from the same Latin word as explain: explanare, which means make clear. Because explanation and explain are so closely related, people often try to shoehorn an extra i into the spelling of explanation. Don't. You might think that explanation has the odd spelling, but it is really the more regular of the two because there is no i in explanare.

the endeavor of a Moslem scholar to derive a rule of divine law from the Koran and Hadith without relying on the views of other scholars; by the end of the 10th century theologians decided that debate on such matters would be closed and Muslim theology and law were frozen